Comrade Chicherin! We must urgently (before the departure of the "Spartacist" 246 — [it must be] confirmed at the Central Committee) prepare an international socialist conference for the founding of the III International.
(in Berlin (openly) or in Holland (secretly), let us say, for 1.II.1919)
in general very soon

For this [purpose] it is necessary:
(a) to formulate the foundations of the platform (in my opinion, one can
(.) take the theory and practice of Bolshevism — entrust Bukharin to set it forth in theses briefly, insofar as possible. Speak with Bukharin — perhaps [we should] take a part from my draft program*
(.) then take "What does the Spartacus League want?").
. + . gives sufficiently clearly the foundations of the platform;
(b) to determine the basis (organizational) of the III International (with social-patriots — nothing in common);
(c) to give a list of parties under three, roughly, rubrics
..) parties and groups which we have full grounds to consider already standing on the basis of the III International and sufficiently solidary for the formal founding of the III International;
..) parties close to this, from which we expect rapprochement and fusion;
..) groups and currents within the social-patriotic parties, more or less close to Bolshevism.

An approximate list I propose (p. 4)**, it must be carefully supplemented.

Whom do we invite to our conference? Only .. + .. + .. and only those who (1) resolutely stand for a break with the social-patriots (i.e., who supported, directly or indirectly, bourgeois governments during the imperialist war of 1914-1918; 2) for socialist revolution now and for the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) in principle for "Soviet power" and against limiting our work by bourgeois parliamentarism, against subordination to it, for [the position] that the type of Soviet power is higher and closer to socialism.

Perhaps [we should] add: we do not propose that all the III International immediately call itself "communist-

* V. I. Lenin had in mind the materials for the draft of the new party program (see Collected Works, 5th ed., vol. 32, pp. 135-162; vol. 36, pp. 70-76). — Editor.

** The list is found at the end of the present letter. — Editor.